Lean manufacturing brings results to “Symmons Industries”

It is amazing to see how fast lean manufacturing is revolutionizing the world of manufacturing. I have described lean as common scenes manufacturing in many of my earlier posts on this blog. Today I read a news article which proved these. This story tells us how easy is to improve any process with little bit of guidance and creative thinking. Especially it quantifies some of the benefits of lean manufacturing.

Story was on “Symmons Industries” based in Massachusetts. They have implemented lean in their manufacturing facilities with the intentions of improving their manufacturing processes. These are some highlights of their lean journey.

1. Changing from forecast manufacturing to demand based manufacturing – In pure lean terms this is the application of pull system of manufacturing. Facility will not manufacturer based on assumed demand (which is the forecast), but to the actual demand of the market. The result is reduction of inventory and shorter lead times. The numbers they have achieved are amazing. This article states that they have reduced their finish good inventory by 98 %( from $3.8 million to $50,000) and lead time from two weeks to 98% shipped within 2 Days.
   
2. Reduction of setup time and transportation – They have reduced their setup time to 15 minutes from 12 Hours by analyzing the system and using technology and automation carefully. Obviously this will improve the systems response time and will make the system very flexible.
   
3. Simplification of ERP process – Simplification is a key concept of lean manufacturing. With the reduction of inventory levels there is no requirement to track the stocks in multiple levels. Simply they have incorporated their kanban process to signal the ERP system about the movement and back flushing will reduce the inventory so there is no need for a separate system entry.
   
4. Improving the communication and integrating lean elements – communication between teams will make the system very transparent. Ideas will flow freely. Seamless integration and flow is very important lean concepts.

All the factors put together they have achieved 98% reduction of their finished goods inventory, lead time reduction from two weeks to 2 days(98% of the order) and importantly 55% improvement in sales. Low cost and higher volumes of sales, haven’t you dreamed about this one day. Lean manufacturing have made the dream come true for “Symmons Industries”. I think this is great example of application of lean and its benefits.


Resources:
http://www.arcweb.com/txtlstvw.aspx?LstID=bf17553d-733e-4f34-af70-d6a87c752416